


Seven

by xannish



Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2013-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-03 08:44:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xannish/pseuds/xannish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven years, seven sins, all of them his fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boywonder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boywonder/gifts).



I. GULA

The boy ate like a starving animal. He hadn’t had a real meal since he’d run away. He’d picked blackberries in the woods, and a few early apples from the orchard, but the berries weren’t enough to fill him up, and the apples were sour and made his stomach hurt. He’d tried to steal a pie cooling on a windowsill in town, but the baker had caught him looking and shooed him away. Van gave him warm stew full of lots of vegetables, thick gravy, and big chunks of rich, savory meat that melted in your mouth. There was fresh bread, too, and watered-down wine like his father had sometimes given him at feasts.

But he’d never attend a feast again. That dirty imposter would be there in his place, probably spoon-fed like a baby.

He shoved another bite of stew into his mouth, as if filling his empty stomach could fill the other empty place inside of him.

“You should slow down,” Van cautioned from where he stood against the wall, shadowed. “You’ll make yourself ill.”

Asch glared up at him through his mop of red hair, and took a huge bite of bread, cheeks bulging as he stared defiantly at the man who had been his teacher, then his captor. Who was now… something else.

Van shrugged, and then crossed his arms. “Suit yourself, but you’ll be the one suffering the consequences.”

Asch chewed and swallowed, and took a drink of the watered wine, trying to rinse the huge glob of bread down his throat.

He ate the rest of the meal more carefully. He’d been sick enough before.

II. INVIDIA

He knew he shouldn’t, but Asch still visited Duke Fabre’s manor, sometimes. He kept out of sight, but he couldn’t help wanting to check up on everyone. His mother—no, it was easier just to think of her as the Lady Fabre, now—took ill so often, and he always had the secret fear that this time would be the last time he saw her.

But he could never watch the manor without seeing the boy confined within. The _replica_. The thing which had taken his place, which everyone fawned over, maybe even more than they had him, because it was so helpless and childish. In two years, it had gotten better, of course. It walked and talked. It played at being a normal child, but it was still obvious it wasn’t.

He still talked like a child, in a clumsy, carefree way that showed every emotion without any thought or tact. And he ran about like he was six, not _eleven_.

“Master Van!” he heard the replica call from the courtyard, and at first, Asch was sure that he was mistaken. Van was on important business. He’d told Asch so when he’d left. It was how Asch had been able to sneak out to Baticul. And besides, there’s no way that Van would be here dealing with the _replica_.

But the voice that answered that call was unmistakable.

“Luke,” Van acknowledged, with seemingly all the warmth he’d given that name when it belonged to someone else. “Have you been practicing the form I showed you?” Van stepped into view, a smile on his face.

“Yeah! It’s really good! Wanna see?” The replica ran towards him, the wooden practice sword flailing in his arms.

“All right, but take it from the top and do it correctly for me, okay?”

Asch’s stomach knotted with loathing. He couldn’t watch anymore.

III. IRA 

_“I hate you,”_ Asch spat.

Van leveled him with a dispassionate gaze, and went back to packing the fomicry equipment that he had recently obtained from a specialist manufacturer in Keterburg for delivery to the labs at Belkend. Asch didn’t know what it was for, and he didn’t much care at the moment. Maybe it was so that Van could ruin someone else’s life by creating a replica. Maybe he’d adopt them, too.

“Aren’t you listening to me? I hate you. How can you just fucking stand there? I saw you with him, with that… that _drek_ , treating him like… like…”

“Like Luke fon Fabre?” Van offered, turning his head to regard him out of one eye.

Asch made a sound of incoherent rage and lashed out with his foot, not expecting he could land a blow on Van, but hoping to knock over the crate of fragile glass and metal instruments and cause some _real_ frustration. Instead, Van caught his foot mid-kick, and _pulled_ , knocking Asch off balance.

He hit the floor hard, chest aching with the breath knocked out of him, and lay there dazed for a long moment. Van used the calm to finish his packing and secure the crate’s lid before he turned back.

“I continue to see your _replica_ because it would be suspicious if I did not. I still have an agreement with Duke Fabre to tutor his son, and that did not become null and void because of what they say was a kidnapping.”

Asch swallowed, and felt a sob rise in his throat. “You hurt me,” he whispered.

“I know.”

“I don’t want you to be his master. I want you to be _mine_.”

Van knelt beside him, and brushed a few strands of hair from his face. “I will always be your master, Asch.”

“Promise?”

“I do.”

IV. AVARITIA

Asch traced his fingers over the red designs on the ornate uniform. The fabric was fine and heavy, better than soldiers ever wore. More like a courtier’s coat than a guard’s, but he knew from watching the God-Generals in battle that their clothes could take quite a beating without tears or obvious wear.

He had yearned for a uniform like this one, to stand before Van, not behind him. To fight for something important. To serve more than just his master. And then Van had given it to him, in private the night before his official promotion to the rank. And had given him a sword, a blade that he said had been forged by the same smith that had forged his own blade, but who had died years ago. He’d tracked down all the pieces he could, and thought this one suited Asch quite well, didn’t he think?

He did think. And he wanted it. He wanted the clothes and the sword and the silken tabard more than he’d wanted anything in his life.

He fell asleep that night with his face buried in the folds of cloth that still smelled like Van’s wardrobe, the hilt of the Hod-forged sword clutched in his hand.

V. LUXURIA

He couldn’t put a finger on when things changed between them. When he realized his admiration of Van wasn’t just hero worship, when his master’s touches with kindness or cruelty began to spark a new kind of fire within him.

Sometimes he disobeyed because he knew it would win him punishment.

And then came the day when his master had him bound, hard lashes falling against his bare back and buttocks because he’d ran away, again, and gotten himself questioned by Baticul’s guards, and someone had to come and make excuses for him.

And his moans from the beating were something else, too, and he was too deep in the warm red haze of pain and desire to feel shame when Van found his erection, to feel anything but raw need when his master’s hand stroked him to orgasm.

He shared Van’s bed that night, and many nights thereafter, but no kiss stolen in bed could ever remember the intimacy that came with the kiss of the whip.

VI. ACEDIA

They lived on the move, in action, in intrigue. Asch didn’t know most of the time whether Van was his most hated enemy or most beloved friend. Maybe someone could be both. Either way, he kept Asch jumping, always waited one step ahead.

He knew that this life couldn’t last forever.

He knew that it would all fall apart, that he would have to strike, or be struck down.

But in the meantime… in the meantime there were moments he wished would never end.

A mission from the Grand Maestro had brought them to Chesedonia. Van had been working night and day—quite literally—on a trade agreement, but now, with their obligations resolved, they had time before they were needed back in Daath. Time and a pre-paid suite in the nicest inn the trading town had to offer.

Asch slept for ten hours, and when he awoke, Van was still asleep beside him. It was a novelty that had rarely happened before, and he lay in bed, simply listening to his master’s breathing, then growing bolder and letting his hands trace the lines of the older man’s body, exploring the scars, caressing the wisps of hair.

Van stirred and opened his eyes, and the first expression that came to his face was a surprising gentle smile.

He pulled Asch closer, and they didn’t get out of bed for a very long time.

VII. SUPERBIA

Seven.

It had been seven years since the horrors of Choral Castle, since he had lost his life and name and been given a new one. Seven years, and he still sometimes traveled to the city of Baticul and climbed the wall to survey the manor of Duke Fabre. But what he saw no longer hurt so much.

The replica played at fighting, sparring with Van or with Guy, but Asch had killed men with blade and with artes alike, and knew a hundred ways to counter the replica’s childlike thrusts.

The replica whined, and took for granted the fine things that he was given. Everything that Asch possessed, he earned.

The replica fawned over Master Van, but when Van left the manor, he always returned eventually to the chambers that he and Asch kept.

The replica was trapped, coddled and secluded in the family’s mansion, awaiting the day that their Score-told death came true. Asch had the world. Asch had a future.

Asch was better than him. Asch was better, even, than Van ever knew.

And someday, Asch would show them all.


End file.
